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Saturday, December 24, 2011

Brent Bozell
Thursday night on Fox News said President Barack Obama looks like “a
skinny, ghetto crackhead.” Bozell is the founder and president of
the Media Research Center, a conservative activist organization that
parades as a think tank and media watchdog.Talking Points Memo reports:

A Fox News guest on Thursday said that “you might want to say” President Obama looks like “a skinny, ghetto crackhead.”
Brent Bozell, of the conservative Media Research Center, appeared on
Fox Thursday night, where guest host Mark Steyn showed a clip of MSNBC’s Chris Matthews saying that Newt Gingrich “looks like a car bomber.”
…“How long do you think Sean Hannity’s show
would last if four times in one sentence, he made a comment about, say,
the President of the United States, and said that he looked like
a skinny, ghetto crackhead?” Bozell wondered. “Which, by the way, you
might want to say that Barack Obama does.”

Notice how Bozell cowardly ensconces his racist attack against Obama
in “you might want to say” language so he can say, “Well, I didn’t
say that.”
Bozell has a long resume when it comes to ultra-​right wing conservative groups. Wikipedia notes,

Leo Brent Bozell III (born July
14, 1955) is an American conservative writer and activist. Bozell is
the founder and president of the Media Research Center, the Conservative
Communications Center, and the Cybercast News Service. Bozell served as
president of the Parents Television Council from 1995 to 2006, after
which he was succeeded by Timothy F. Winter. In addition, currently,
Bozell serves on the board for the Catholic League for Religious and
Civil Rights and has served on the board of directors in the American
Conservative Union.

Fox News’ animosity toward President Obama, three years
into his presidency, is by now well-​known. This is the network
that routinely calls Obama a socialist, accuses him of being involved in
all sorts of conspiratorial plots, and claims that he hates America.
But, as witnessed Thursday on Hannity, Fox’s attacks have taken
an increasingly racially charged tone: Brent Bozell, who runs
the factuallychallenged outfit of conservative misinformation known as
the Media Research Center, likened Obama to “a skinny, ghetto
crackhead.”
…
A few months ago, Fox’s Eric Bolling came under fire for his racially
charged criticisms of Obama, including his claims that
Obama was “chugging 40’s in IRE while tornadoes ravage MO”
(which he latertried to amend), and that Obama was hosting “hoodlum[s]
in the hizzouse” when he welcomed Gabon President Ali Bongo Ondimba and
rapper Common to the White House.
…
Since April of this year when Obama announced he would be running for
reelection, attacks haveranged from false claims about the president’s
place of birth and religion to claiming Obama has “black nationalist
sympathies.” Fox’s Monica Crowley, for example, derided Obama as a
“committed wealth redistributionist” for the apparent benefit of
African-​Americans.
But this is nothing new. Fox News and its personalities have
a long history of aggressive race-​baiting and racially
charged commentary. Moreover, Fox News’ news-​aggregation website, Fox
Nation, has ahabit of prominently featuring race-​baiting headlines and
content in an apparent effort to attract and encourage racist
commenters. One memorable headline read: “Obama’s Hip-​Hop BBQ Didn’t Create Jobs.”